Similar Tasks, Different Methods, for 2 Lawyers for Police Officers

By JOSEPH P. FRIED

Published: March 22, 1999

One is ebullient and outspoken, a lawyer who has a pugnacious courtroom style and relishes the limelight. The other is reserved and often seems somber, a lawyer quietly tenacious in court and with the mien of someone who accepts the spotlight as an occasional part of the job.

The two -- the ardent Marvyn M. Kornberg and the restrained Stephen C. Worth -- have emerged as the most prominent lawyers for police officers at the center of two politically and emotionally charged cases: the killing of Amadou Diallo, the West African immigrant who died in a hail of 41 police bullets in the Bronx last month, and the attack on Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, allegedly by officers in Brooklyn in 1997. And the two have often been at odds.

Each represents an officer in each case. A Bronx grand jury is seeking to determine whether criminal charges should be brought against the four officers who fired at Mr. Diallo. Their lawyers have said they mistakenly believed the unarmed man was reaching for a weapon.

Jury selection is to begin March 29 in Federal District Court in Brooklyn for the trial of the four officers charged in the attack on Mr. Louima. They are accused of beating him in a police car after he was arrested in a street brawl in Flatbush; two of the four are also charged with torturing him in a police station bathroom. The officers have denied the charges.

Possibly because their clients are accused of major roles in each case, and because of their distinct personalities and past encounters, Mr. Kornberg and Mr. Worth have been conspicuous in clashing with each other in the two cases.

In the Diallo case, Mr. Kornberg, who is 64 and based in Queens, represents Officer Sean Carroll, while Mr. Worth, 47 and working out of Manhattan, represents Officer Edward McMellon.

People close to Mr. Worth said he was angered when Mr. Kornberg said publicly that he expected the four officers to be indicted in the case, a statement Mr. Worth considered reckless. Mr. Kornberg has expressed annoyance at Mr. Worth for saying publicly, shortly after Mr. Diallo was shot, that all four officers would testify before the grand jury.

At the time, Mr. Worth, who is a lawyer for the police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, was representing all four officers. Mr. Kornberg, who entered the case later, as did two other lawyers for the other two officers, has said Mr. Worth should not have made a statement on behalf of all four. Mr. Kornberg has said he will not have Officer Carroll testify before the grand jury.

In the Louima case, Mr. Kornberg and Mr. Worth represent the two officers charged with torturing Mr. Louima. Mr. Kornberg's client, Justin A. Volpe, is accused of ramming a stick into Mr. Louima's rectum and then his mouth, inflicting major injuries to his colon and bladder, in a bathroom of the 70th Precinct station house. Mr. Worth's client, Charles Schwarz, is accused of holding Mr. Louima down at the time.

Mr. Kornberg has been critical of Mr. Worth for allowing Officer Schwarz to say on the television program ''60 Minutes'' that although he did not take part in the reported attack with the stick, he believed that an officer at the station house did carry out such an assault.

Though the different interests and actions of their clients and different legal strategies have shaped conflicts between Mr. Kornberg and Mr. Worth, those who know both said that their personalities and histories with each other aggravate the situation.

''They don't like each other -- I don't think it's any secret,'' said one person familiar with the two. Mr. Kornberg, said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, ''doesn't like to share any of the limelight,'' and Mr. Worth wants the lawyers for other defendants in the cases he is involved in to ''agree with him and do it his way.''

Others who know the two, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Worth did not trust Mr. Kornberg and that Mr. Kornberg had long held low regard for the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and the law firms it has contracted with to represent officers charged with brutality and other misconduct.

Mr. Worth's firm, Worth, Longworth, Bamundo & London, has had such a contract, for $11 million per year, with the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association since last May. The firm represents all officers facing charges or retains other lawyers to do so, but officers may hire their own lawyers and seek reimbursement from the union. Officers Volpe and Carroll hired Mr. Kornberg, as have other officers in past cases.

Last year, Mr. Kornberg sought the contract that Mr. Worth's firm won. But he has been at odds with the union and its lawyers since 1991, when he represented a police officer charged with manslaughter in the Queens death of a suspected car thief who prosecutors said was killed by a choke hold.

Mr. Kornberg, who won acquittal for the officer, Anthony Paparella, said at the time that inadequate representation by another law firm, which was then working for the union, had led to the indictments of his client and three other officers before he entered the case. Prosecutors later dropped the charges against the other three.

''I've been feuding with the P.B.A. back to the Paparella case,'' Mr. Kornberg said last week.

Asked his assessment of Mr. Worth's legal skills, Mr. Kornberg said, ''I've never tried a case with Steve Worth, so at the present time I have no feelings.'' He said that in the Diallo and Louima cases, he and Mr. Worth had not ''seen eye to eye,'' but added, ''being both professionals, we will overcome those differences for the benefit of our clients, because the clients come first.''

Mr. Worth, who has been close to the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association for years, similarly declined to assess Mr. Kornberg. ''It's not about Kornberg and me,'' he said. ''The story is the clients.''

Photos: Stephen C. Worth, left (Frances Roberts for The New York Times), and Marvyn M. Kornberg, who represent officers in the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo cases, have very different styles. (Rebecca Cooney for The New York Times)